Quasar Knight's Christmas Sale

Christmas Image from WP Clipart

It's hard to believe that I've been writing role-playing sourcebooks for half a year, but here we are.  I've always sought to make my work both original and affordable in comparison to the many other offerings online by tackling concepts and ideas which have been relatively unexplored in 3rd Party  fantasy d20 games and retroclones.  I decided to host a sale for the holidays and the end of the year, but instead of holding it for one day I'm extending it from today to New Year's Day.

My entire catalog is 50% off on Drive-Thru RPG.  I specialize heavily in Pathfinder at the moment, but I do have an OSR book I'm sure classic fans will enjoy.  If you had any of these items in your shopping cart or wish list, now would be a good time to check them out!

The Magic School Campaign, Part 1: Themes and Motivation

Image Courtesy of Little Witch Academia, designed by Studio Trigger

Since early August I've been running Arcana High, a Pathfinder campaign for a solid group of four players I've had the pleasure of befriending online.  Even before the popularization of Harry Potter the concept of a wizarding academy has been a strong fixture in the fantasy genre.  It might go back as far as 1968, with Usula LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea.  Even our own table-top community has made inroads to this subgenre with Redhurst: Academy of Magic back in 2003 and an upcoming Sigantium: Academy of the Arcane project on KickStarter.  Another major influence for my campaign are the Persona series of video games, where students at a normal Japanese high school secretly go out and fight supernatural monsters while balancing their social lives (an equally important aspect of the game).

Even before I first set out my first planned adventure, I realized that the overall themes and design considerations of such a campaign would be very different than a typical Dungeons & Dragons adventure.  The setting would be based around a central school/city hub rather than adventures traveling the world; the party make-up would lean entirely towards spellcasters over the mundane classes; and the drama and conflict of a young adult's social life is too ripe for role-playing opportunities to pass up!

This is but the first of several planned articles for this unique kind of campaign.

Themes, Motivations, and Experience

Unless your school's set up to be an adventuring academy, your student PCs probably have hopes and dreams unrelated to exploring dank dungeons in search of gold and artifacts.   Perhaps one of them wishes to continue the long and proud tradition of family illusionists; another might not even want to be there, viewed as cursed for their sorcerous ways and shunned by family to get their budding mage out of their hair.  They might even be inheritors of a heroic legacy or members of a secret organization safeguarding the mundane world from the forces of evil.  

Traditional D&D gives an incentive for player behavior by making the accumulation of experience and gold add to character growth.  In a magic school campaign, experience points should be handed out when the PCs stay in line with the themes of the game.  Altruistic mages who use their spells to save a burning house full of innocent citizens deserve just as much of a reward as if they were saving the people from a vicious monster.  A prospective gnome studying necromancy in spite of her culture's taboo on it might gain experience for tasks and quests related to the advancement of this goal.  Social interaction, conflict resolution, and personal identity are all major influences on the PCs in a magic school campaign.

The Theme System

Drow Prodigy by Maxa-art of Deviantart

PCs choose 2 themes at character creation, reflecting some kind of goal, personality trait, or social bond to another character or group of characters.  The DM is encouraged to create conflicts focused on said themes, and PCs who successfully overcome this conflict gain experience points for doing so.  This is not the only way of earning experience in the game, but it encourages a sort of group-based means of adventure generation by having the Dungeon Master create scenarios his players will be most likely to follow.

In order to benefit from a theme, it must occur during the course of the gaming session and inconvenience the PC in some way, shape, or form.  A PC or party which manages to overcome the theme’s challenge is awarded bonus experience points depending upon the severity of the theme.  PCs who manage to overcome and/or deal with obstacles related to their theme receive bonus experience points about equivalent to one near the average party level.  A minor conflict might be monsters up to 2 levels lower, a conflict with some noticeable risk of tangible loss equal to the party level, and a significant and urgent matter up to 2 levels higher.  In the case of Pathfinder, levels represent an equivalent monster's Challenge Rating, while for an OSR game the level might represent an equivalent monster's hit dice.

Asking players about their character's backstories and what they want out of life can be a great way to design obstacles and tasks.  All experience gained is divided among the party, even if said challenge really affects only that PC.  This encourages teamwork and cooperation, in that everybody stands to gain something if the PC’s struggles are overcome.  Plus, it’s always nice to know that your friends got your back!

My next post on Magic School Campaigns will cover group composition and the unique considerations and  challenges facing an all-caster party.

SWORD & SHIELD: Rage Against the DM

SWORD & SHIELD: Rage Against the DM



Courtesy of Sword & Shield blog (and Tracy Hurley's Twitter post which led me to it), I found out that Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine fame played Dungeons & Dragons as part of a high school group.



Neat!

Product Spotlight: Old School Monster Classes

As of November 26th, I put the finishing touches on my latest book and uploaded it to the online stores.  Right now you can get it immediately on Drive-Thru RPG and RPGNow, and hopefully Paizo and D20 Pathfinder SRD in the near future.  Old School Monster Classes is a Labyrinth Lord-compatible supplement containing 14 new classes, all of them based off of existing iconic and mythological monsters such as the gnoll and the harpy.

I had the idea for quite a while, since last year in fact, but I never began the project proper until I was in the middle of designing my Playable Monsters supplement for Pathfinder Role-Playing Game.  There are many problems with monster PCs in a lot of D&D games: for one, lots of folk play them as-is with abilities intact, even if said abilities would be disruptive to the core of the game; who needs to adventure when the genie can conjure precious metals at will?  Another is due to the game's roots where monsters were primarily adversaries lurking at the edges of civilization, guarding treasure to be claimed and laying siege to villages.  It's no surprise that most monstrous beings are attacked on sight in most campaigns, and don't really have a lot of cultural detail in comparison to dwarves, elves, and halflings beyond the whims of individual homebrewers.

My two primary objectives for designing this book were to make the iconic traits of these 14 monsters in line with existing spells and class features at reasonable levels, and to give them interesting societies as fodder for role-play material and reasons for why they wouldn't be villified by the entire world.  Playing as a monster might be fun and nifty, but if their society is one-dimensional and uninteresting and one-dimensional it does not become a very attractive option.  Look at my previous post on my blog about gnolls: there's still room for the raider archetype, but I expanded their role beyond that one facet.  

Although this book might not be for everyone, the idea of playing as monsters for a change is a very popular idea in D&D which is sadly under-used in sourcebooks these days.  If you're an avid fan of B/X D&D and its retroclones, consider checking out my work and seeing if it's a good match for you and your gaming group.

Drive-Thru RPG Link.

RPGNow Link.

Paizo Link.

D20 Pathfinder SRD Link.

DMing Tools: the Bioware-Style Journal

DMing Tools: the Bioware-Style Journal

Image Courtesy of Moby Games

It's inevitable that the Dungeon Master of any long-running game will accumulate a healthy assortment of notes, plans, and bookmarks for their regular sessions.  Now that I've been using Roll20 recently, I have a much easier time organizing and saving relevant parts.

Going to video games, the RPGs Bioware is famous for producing (notably Dragon Age and Mass Effect series) include a "Journal" (or Codex) choice in the options menu.  Basically how it works is that whenever your character encounters some new bit of lore, be it the contents of a book in a musty library or the first encounter with a species of monster, the relevant data is added to the Journal.  What's great about it is that knowledge is gained incrementally: you won't get everything related to Elven culture when you visit one of their settlements, and the entries update depending on events which take place in the game.  Sometimes the journal entries will be in-character, with the entry on wolves written by a scribe discussing superstitions and folkore surrounding them.  Combine this utility with alphabetical entries organized by subject, and you have an easily-searchable journal full of knowledge that is fun to read.

So how can this be applied to traditional table-top games?  Well, for one, every Roll20 campaign comes with its own message board to be filled with the posts of the DM and players.  For my Arcana High campaign, I searched the chat archives and campaign journal entries when I had some free time, going over the major characters, nations, religions, and compiling them in the posts of a new thread.  I kept the entries simple, usually no more than 1 or 2 sentences.  Like my earlier style when doing "skeleton settings," I only made entries for characters, places, and events the characters encountered or heard about in the game sessions.  That way the journal's growth is organic instead of feeling like a huge infodump on the players.

Even with this brief information of a sentence or two per entry, it has been immensely helpful for my players to keep track of things.  Sometimes we can't always make it to the game, or the DM gets sick.  Simply trusting people to remember things, even important characters and events, isn't always so simple when we have real life getting in the way.

As for those not using Roll20 or other online games, compiling a "codex" to e-mail to players who ask for it can be a great idea as well.  I recommend to send them only the relevant bits they ask for in case the journal gets quite long.

Adding Culture: Gnolls, the syncretic nomads

Adding Culture 2: Gnolls, the syncretic nomads

Desert Gnoll by Gary Dupuis

For my latest work (and for my upcoming OSR version) I designed player character-friendly variants of existing iconic monsters in Pathfinder, such as the giant and the medusa.  Many 3rd Party Pathfinder books which provide playable races create new options as opposed to drawing upon existing fantasy archetypes.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it always felt weird to ignore the myriad creatures which already exist in the Monster Manuals.

When designing new monster PCs for Playable Monsters Vol. 1, I came upon the gnolls. Traditionally they weren't much different than orcs: evil, might makes right society, enslaved those weaker than themselves, live in the wilderness, etc.  As part of redesigning their society, I decided to  make them nomadic, people born and raised among the plains, badlands, and deserts of the world.  Eventually their far-flung migrations gave them a distinct edge in trading rare goods, and many gnolls took up the art of mercantilism.

Gnoll clans also resorted to raiding in lean times, but they tended to restrict their theft towards stealth at night to avoid sparking violence and blood feuds.  As long as they took only what was necessary, gnoll clans tolerated this as a necessary evil.  Of course, this does not always end ideally, and a lot of folk who might otherwise welcome their trade fear them in times of drought and famine.

Due to their travels, gnolls interact with all manner of cultures, and as a result they learn of more faiths than sedentary villagers would.  Gnolls acknowledge the existence and influence of many deities and spirits, and often pay homage to local shrines and temples so that the deity of the region's people would grant them safe passage.  Bouts of good fortune might even turn their one-time show of respect to long-time worship, and the pantheons of many gnoll clans are a widespread combination of nature spirits, elemental entities, and deities of many races and cultures who line up well with the clan's traditions.

Note: Regarding gnoll religion, I always found the choice of limiting monsters to their own deity or pantheon odd in settings where there are so many deities of different portfolios.  As many people of campaign settings pay homage to deities in meaningful areas of their lives (like blacksmiths praying regularly to the god of the forge) and true monotheism is very rare, it would be natural for humanoids to adopt more deities into their religious rituals over time.



If this take on gnolls sounds cool and interesting, then I suggest that you check out Playable Monsters on RPGNow, or Drive-Thru RPG.  Both have full-sized previews to give you a taste of things to come.

Quasar Knight Enterprises: What I Write and What I Do

I've always wanted to be a writer since I was a kid.  From Dungeons & Dragons to the Final Fantasy series, RPGs served as ample fodder for both fond memories and engaging imaginary worlds and stories.  Three years ago I started writing reviews, homebrew materials, and the occasional article on the message boards I frequented which shared an interest in science fiction and fantasy games.  After playing 3rd Edition and Pathfinder for many years, I decided to get writing on a small project in late 2013 as part of a creative writing thread on the Something Awful RPG subforum.

It was a rough start.  I had to get legal advice about the OGL to make sure I properly understood its conditions.  My computer broke down after the first month, and I had to manually extract the files to recover what I lost (thereafter teaching me to save multiple copies of everything on cloud storage and external hard drives).  I was a newcomer to self-publishing and had to juggle the writing process with finding stock art, setting up shop on Drive-Thru, Paizo, and other places, and doing the formatting myself.

After several months and a rocky start, I ended up with a finished product, the Abstract Thief, in early June, and Quasar Knight Enterprises was born.  Once that first book was released I found it easier going forward, for in 3 weeks I had another product out!  Ever since I've been working and releasing one-man projects around a monthly rate.  I've been sticking with what I know so far, which includes Pathfinder and OSR rulesets, but over time I hope to broaden my horizons by writing material for other popular games and maybe eventually my own.

When designing new projects, I always build upon potentially popular ideas which remained more or less untouched in 3rd Party Pathfinder and other OSR products.  There are boatloads of sourcebooks containing new feats, but Nice Things for Fighters was intended to appeal to those players upset with the imbalance between martial and spellcaster classes.  Death to Alignment was a rules variant which combed through existing feats, classes, magic items, and spells and redesigned them for gaming groups who wanted to remove alignment as a game mechanic (but wanted to still keep demons and paladins).  In a fandom where the number of 3rd Party Pathfinder products on Drive-Thru is 4,000 and still growing by the month, it's nigh-mandatory to make work which is original and stands out to get noticed.

My advice to would-be publishers and writers in the RPG industry is this: the first step is often the hardest.  The writing, the research, the initial fears of dipping your toes into the sea of products.  But once you get in the water, that vast ocean will seem a lot smaller.  And as a writer there's no better feeling in the world than when you put the finishing touches on your current project, uploading it to the Internet, and seeing people buy it to use in their home games.

So that's my story.  I hope that you enjoyed it.

The Benefits of a Skeleton Setting

The Benefits of a Skeleton Setting

13 Nights of Halloween 2013 Skeleton Army by Grimbro of DeviantArt

A lot of folks use established worlds and campaign settings.  At their best, they serve as a toolbox of interesting locations and characters with minimal prep work.  I have many fond memories of gaming in Freedom City, Oerth, and the Sixth World, but in recent months I've taken to creating my own worlds.

I'm sure that there's an already established term for this, but my method of homebrew is to leave as much of the setting unexplored if possible, filling out the immediate factors when they become relevant and building off of my player's ideas.  I still have a lot of detail when it comes to preparing adventure material, but my setting comes to life as I go along and come up with new ideas instead of filling things out ahead of time.  Instead of a fully-fledged world, organs and all, a minimalist setting is a skeletal framework; both are structurally sound, but the latter has more room to add on and customize with minimal fuss and challenge of popular conceptions.

One of my current gaming sessions is a Pathfinder setting where the PCs are all students at a magic academy, but who are secretly masked avengers who go out and fight bad guys.  I have a central city as a home location (Brancean) and the backdrop of a wider country (Aleria), but aside from that other lands are referenced via second-hand information and backstory.

When I first created my game, half the players were overall newcomers to Pathfinder in general, but they set about making their characters unhindered by the lack of a fully-fledged framework, adding what seemed right at the time without the GM filling them in on things.  One player created a gnome illusionist, Syrasi Tumblebarrow, the latest in a long line of talented magicians.  She was ecstatic to come to Highstone Academy, not just for their stellar reputation, but also to explore the art of necromancy, a taboo subject in Gnomish culture.

Another player chose to play a dwarf, Ritti Dragonslayer, whose people worship the sun deity who is instead known as an entity of fire, justice, and war to those living in the Underdark.  The player also wanted her character to be like the dwarves of Discworld, where gender isn't considered important except for the purposes of reproduction and more or less dress identically and all have beards.

A third player wanted his PC to come from a prominent and amoral noble family, the Von Kleists.

Instead of checking up on setting lore or flipping through sourcebooks for example material to best fit their characters, these factors were decided out of the blue.  Far from being a hindrance, the bare details of setting culture allowed for more freedom for us to create our own shared world.

It did not stop at character creation, either.  I relied upon the in-character talk of the PCs to get further ideas.  While the PCs were searching Brancean's literal undercity for a dark folk priest, Ritti remarked upon the oddity of the concept of training people to become priests.  It was but a minor remark not expanded upon at the time, but it provided potential fodder for future ideas.  Did divine magic come intuitively to dwarves, then?  Where the champions of deities and spirits picked directly by their patrons, with no trials, tests, or ceremonies necessary?  Maybe all dwarves were versed in spiritual matters, making the concept of a religious occupation unnecessary?

The idea of an Undercity below Brancean was also a new idea at the time.  When designing my city I did not care to detail every neighborhood or important person, saving those things for later and building off of earlier notes.  As a person whose free time is consumed by writing future work projects and adventure ideas, I don't always have the leisure of designing settings from the ground up, but I crave the openness of building my own world.

My own designs of a "skeleton setting" were built off of the sandbox nature of OSR games, but combined with the collaborative world-building of 13th Age where the backstories of players also determine the features about the world.  It's worked very well for me, as it combines the best features of many design decisions.

Playable Monsters from the Tome of Horrors

Playable Monsters from the Tome of Horrors

A Mini-Review for the Swords & Wizardry Edition

Unlike Labyrinth Lord, there aren't too many 3rd Party products for Swords & Wizardry, much less new races.   The Tome of Horrors Complete, by far one of the largest monster collections, allows playable versions of monstrous races: Crabmen, Dakons, Dire Corbies, Half-ogres, Mongrelmen, Stormwardens, Tabaxi, and Tsathars.

In terms of features, more than a few of them are quite strong. A lot of them do have class and level restrictions (not detailed here), although any OSR games I played never made it far level-wise to see the effects in place. And what classes the monsters are restricted to tend to be ones that supplement their natural abilities.

Dwarves:

Defenses: The player-character Dwarf has a +4 on saving throws against any magic.

Stone Sense: Dwarfs easily takes note of certain features of stonework: sloping corridors, moving walls, and traps made of stone – in particular: falling blocks, rigged ceilings, and tiny arrow slits designed to release poison gas or darts. They can also identify whether stonework is recent or not. There is no established die roll or rule for using these abilities; exactly what a Dwarf does or does not perceive is up to the Referee.

Darkvision: Dwarfs can see in the dark to a limit of 60 feet.

Elves:

Darkvision: Elves can see in the dark to a range of 60 feet.

Find secret doors: Elves have a 1-in-6 chance to notice a secret door automatically and have a 4-in-6 chance to find secret doors when actively searching, unlike the other races, which have only a 2-in-6 chance.

Defenses: Elves cannot be paralyzed by ghouls.

Half-Elves:

Darkvision: Half-elves can see in the dark to a range of 60 feet.

Find secret doors: Half-elves have a 4-in-6 chance to find secret doors when actively searching.

Halflings:

Defenses: Halflings gain a +4 on saving throws against magic

Attack Bonuses: Halflings have a +1 bonus when using missile weapons.

Humans:

Humans are the default race for Swords & Wizardry, and thus they receive no specific bonuses or penalties as do the other races. Humans are a hardy breed, fighting vigorously to expand and guard their civilization in a dangerous world. Many perils lurk beyond the borders of the human lands, but humanity must be ever alert to the possibility of treachery within its own territories and kingdoms: The very individuality that makes humankind so diverse and energetic as a race can also breed those who are dark of mind and willing to cooperate with the forces of evil and chaos.

Note that non-humans cannot be Assassins, Druids, Monks, Paladins, or Rangers as player Characters.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what we have.

Crabmen are tall, peaceful creatures which live around coastal regions. They start the game with an extra hit die, can swim, have an exoskeleton which is equivalent to full plate (AC 3 or 16 depending on system), but they can't use manufactured weapons and instead fight with crab claws (1d6). Given the expensive nature of full plate (100 gp) and usefulness of more hit points, crabmen make for great martial characters!

Dakons are sapient gorillas and more down to earth than the crabmen, gaining a +1 to Strength (not above 18, no other race than half-ogre gets this), +1 on grappling, can climb walls as a thief no matter the class, can see in the dark, and deal 1d4 damage on unarmed strikes instead of 1d2.

Dire Corbies are crow-people who are very vicious warriors and hunters. They can see in the dark and suffer no penalties from fighting while blind, and can hear through doors and thin walls on a 1-3 on a d6 roll. They can surprise foes on a 1-2 roll when fighting in darkness, and their feathers give the equivalent of leather armor (8 or 11). A lot of their abilities are perception-related, but more in line with the standard races.

Half-ogres are outcasts from both races' societies and tend towards physical professions. Mechanics-wise they are sort of unimaginative and bland in comparison to the other options. They get +1 to Strength and Constitution but -1 to Intelligence and Charisma, can't bring scores below 3 or above 18. They can see in the dark and gain an additional hit die. Crabmen are still superior choice IMO.

Mongrelmen are hideous creatures seemingly composed from the body parts of different monsters, but are actually good-natured. They have +1 to Strength and Constitution but -3 to Charisma (as usual, none above 18 or below 3). They can see in the dark and can perfectly imitate the sound of any creature they previously encountered. Nothing much but a potentially creative sound-based ability.

Stormwardens are folk who dwell high in the mountains and can innately control weather patterns. They gain nothing except for casting Control Weather once per day as a 10th-level Magic-User, except that the change is immediate in a 1,000 radius. The effects persist for 10 minutes before returning to normal.

Seriously, a 1,000 feet area of effect. Flash floods, tornadoes, blizzards, deadly heat or cold. There is so much potential awesomeness and abuse.

The Tabaxi are reclusive cat-people who live deep in the forests and jungles. They possess greater than normal speed (15 instead of human 12), and can surprise opponents on a 1-2 on a d6 roll when alone or among others of their kind. They can see in the dark and have claw and bite attacks (1d4 and 1d3, respectively). A robust race sure to please furries and otaku.

Tsathars are evil underground frog-people who worship Tsathogga. They reproduce by planting eggs into living creatures and breed giant frogs for war. Sound cool and flavorful, but what do they get mechanically?

Nothing. Nope, nada, zilch, not even the unrestricted access to classes and levels that humans get. It's a shame, because the monster entry has some cool stuff like being able to jump far and swim and breathe in water. I suggest putting those in for Tsathar PCs.

In conclusion, my favorite races are the dire corbies and tsathars society-wise, but in terms of abilities the Stormwarden tops the list. All but the Tsathars gain a lot of features, which are good, but be careful about allowing them as a few are natural options for certain character concepts (crabmen and half-ogres for fighters, or dire corbies and tabaxis for thieves/mobile fighters).

Adding Culture: Goblin Grave Bards

Adding Culture: Goblin Grave Bards

Artwork created by Suechan

People always wanted to play as monsters in fantasy RPGs.  From 3.X's Savage Species to 2nd Edition's Council of Wyrms campaign setting, many gamers sought to move beyond the bog-standard array of Tolkien-clone Player's Handbook races.  Countless homebrew and commercial products have dipped their hand into this realm, some of it good, others bad and poorly thought-out.  Even if you get well-rounded, balanced versions of monsters suitable for player use, there's usually something missing especially in the cases of less iconic monsters.

A nuanced and three-dimensional society.

Dwarves, elves, and halflings are iconic races.  From JRR Tolkien's work to pages upon pages of setting detail across the decades, we have a very good idea of what kind of traditions and mores they hold.  With the exception of some settings, the more monstrous races such as goblins, giants, and centaur don't really have a lot going for them beyond some sparse detail and vile activities to make them suitably evil for heroic adventurers to slay.  In general, goblins are wicked, love to raid, constantly fight each other, and are more technologically primitive than the Player's Handbook races.  Some goes for orcs, ogres, ettercaps, a lot of evil giants, and other monsters.

I feel that departing from this standard can be good for many reasons: one, it allows for monster PCs to have more role-playing potential beyond "I'm a Choker, I live underground and hunt my prey!"  Two, it's just a lot more interesting to add nuance and depth to make them feel more alive than primarily as enemies to defeat.  This might not be suitable for all campaigns, but it can be a fun way to add some spice to the setting.

The Art of the Grave Bard

Goblinoid folklore teaches that spirits are capable of going to and from the Material Plane and spirit world through entry points of their corpse’s current location.  Like the humans of Aleria and adjoining nations, goblins entomb their dead in graveyards and mounds.  They figure that time spent in a graveyard can get dreary and gloomy over time, so goblin bards regularly visit sites of the dead and perform acts they figure will entertain the spirits.

Oftentimes they perform their work with no crowd, but sometimes others come along to watch.  It’s not uncommon for wealthy beneficiaries to hire such entertainers for private tombs and graves, their plays and shows personalized by the hobbies of the honored dearly departed.  More than a few people view such an occupation as disrespectful, feeling that the dead should instead be honored with quiet observance.

In the goblinoid homeland, bodies are buried in expansive tombs acoustically designed to carry sound vast distances, allowing music to travel far and wide.  Bards spend a great amount of time researching the lives of the deceased to tailor their songs and plays for maximum appeal.

Grave bards aren't always just done for aesthetics.  A grave bard with proper training and magical talent can actually infuse the area with protective magics, making it harder for necromancers and other such folk to tamper with the bodies and souls of the honored dead.

Greetings and Welcome

Welcome to my First Post

Hello there.  If you found this blog, you were probably linked to it by one of my social media accounts or advertised forum posts.  Even if you're familiar with my work, I feel that a little introduction is in order.

My name is Ray Chapel.  I post on a lot of table-top role-playing game websites under the username Libertad.  I am a long-time player of Dungeons & Dragon and an avid enthusiast of other games such as the World of Darkness, Eclipse Phase, and much, much more.

I figured that in addition to Twitter and the other usual suspects, a blog would be a good repository for all of my product updates, articles, reviews, and assorted work.  And I do have a lot to say.

Welcome to my online home, and stay tuned for more updates!